


What Careless Words Have Wrought

by ironlotus



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: But also, Dark? Will Graham, Discussions of Murder as Foreplay, Hannibal Lecter is a Cannibal, Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper, Hannibal is a fictional character, Hannibal is a real person, M/M, Magic Realism, Not as light-hearted as the summary implies, Smut, Will Graham Knows, Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham figures it out, Will Graham knows what the fuck he wants, Winston as a Service Dog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:47:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23375650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironlotus/pseuds/ironlotus
Summary: Will Graham’s inspiration dried up three years ago, before he could complete the third novel in the series that made him famous. With pressure from his agent and his publisher to give them anything new, Will will do whatever it takes to recapture his muse. Literally.Just so happens that his muse has walked off the page and into reality. Also, literally.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 31
Kudos: 491
Collections: Wendigo & Stag





	What Careless Words Have Wrought

**Author's Note:**

> Approximately a 48 minute read.

-+-

**What Careless Words Have Wrought**

-+-

_Monday Evening_

“It’s been three years, Will.” 

Jack’s voice came down the line ringing with exasperation, a tone intimately familiar to Will after hearing it so often over the years. All three of them. Will grunted for an answer, because what could he honestly say in response to that? 

“It wasn’t even this bad when you and Matthew actually broke up,” Jack went on. “You got over it and wrote two novels that year.”

Not just any two. His breakthrough novel and its disgustingly successful following act. And then people started buying his back catalogue, wanting to get their hands on anything he’d written. Not that he ever saw much money from it.

Still, he’d written the best two novels of his career that year. And a little more. 

“Two and a half,” Will corrected. 

A bad move. 

“And where’s the other half?” Jack pressed. “Look, Bedelia has been understanding so far, but she needs to see that you’re at least working on _something_.”

“Look, I—” Will ran a hand through his hair, then down the soft fur on the top of Winston’s head. Winston, familiar with the signs of his rising anxiety, had climbed up onto his lap not a minute after Will answered the phone. “I’ve been rolling an idea around.”

A lie, and they both knew it. But one they both needed said. 

“I’m giving you a week, Will. A week to give me something. _Anything_. So that I can pass that bullshit off to Bedelia with a clear conscience.” He sighed. “I need my beauty sleep.”

“A week,” Will agreed, craning his neck over to touch his forehead to Winston’s. “Fine.”

They disconnected and for a moment Will wanted to toss his phone across the room. But he didn’t have the energy for that. 

Or the money to replace the brittle, ancient device that kids nowadays wouldn’t recognize as a phone. 

A good thing he bought this house outright when he made it big. Now, with next to nothing coming in from royalty checks, he had enough to worry about. Like keeping the lights on. In the summer he could leave the windows open and get by, but now, with fall turning over into winter, keeping the house adequately heated became an expensive proposition. 

With a sigh, he shooed Winston from his lap, freeing himself to cross the living room to his sideboard and grab the bottle of Jim Beam. Winston, following close by his side, whined when Will uncapped the alcohol. 

“Sorry, bud.” 

He rarely drank nowadays—a bad habit he’d left behind after Matthew—but whenever Jack called, a finger of something warming did him good, no matter how Winston protested the smell.

“Jack’s right,” he sighed into the quiet. Matthew’s leaving had turned out to be good for him, in the end. The man had been like an anchor around his neck. After a suitable period of grief, he realized he felt free of that colossal dead weight, and jumped into the new series with the vim of the reborn. The axis of his world shifted. He lived and breathed the story during the day and dreamed it at night.

More than the story, though, he fell in love with the characters. Some were reflections of the people in his life, but the main had been his own creation. Dark, and horrible, and perfect. And then...

_One week, huh?_

He’d have to come up with something new. No way he could finish the third book. That ship had long sailed. 

-+-

_Tuesday_

Will woke with a gasp, launching himself from the bed and staggering to the bathroom in time to empty his stomach into the toilet. His hands trembled as he swiped his forearm across his mouth, too spent to get up off the ground and rinse it off in the sink, let alone stand there and brush his teeth. 

“Winston,” he moaned out when his stomach heaved again. He pressed his forehead to the toilet seat for stability. His knees and legs were growing numb from the cold radiating up from the tile beneath him. “Phone.”

It took Winston three ten-count breath cycles to retrieve it, held so gingerly between his teeth that he must either sense its fragility, or be copying how Will always handled the old relic.

His stomach turned over again, but nothing came out this time, not even bile. It took a while to catch his breath; in the meantime, he pressed the spongy “2” button on the keypad down hard, until the long tone stopped and the speed-dial kicked in. 

It rang twice. 

“Jesus Christ, Will, it’s two o’clock.”

“Beverly,” he gasped out. 

“Fuck. Shit. Fuck.” He heard the sounds of her scrambling—sheets being pushed back, bare feet slapping against the floor. “The dream again? I’m getting dressed. I’ll be there in—God _damn it_ —give me half an hour.”

“You live—” he gasped. “Much further—” _than that_. But he’d run out of steam again. The phone started slipping from his hand. 

“I have a siren,” she grumbled, “and it’s _two in the morning_. Winston!” she yelled through the phone, and Winston’s ears perked up, recognizing her voice, her tone. “Get the door! The door, Winston!”

Winston shot Will a look, and at his weak nod, padded out of the bathroom to do her bidding. 

“Have you been sick? Do I need to call EMS, Graham?”

“I have, but no,” he whispered. He cleared his throat, knowing she couldn’t have heard him; not now that the ancient fossil had completed its slow descent to the tile. “No,” he repeated. The truth. 

“Okay. Do you need me to stay on the line with you?” she asked. 

“No,” he gasped, already starting to fall back asleep. “I’m okay. Just—”

“Thirty minutes, Graham,” she said. She must have hung up then, because by the time she finished talking, he was already asleep. 

An hour, an assisted shower, and a clumsy change of clothes later, they sat around his kitchen table with steaming cups of coffee in front of them. 

“The same dream again?” she asked, looking at his fingers where they clasped themselves on the tabletop. 

“Same one.” He avoided looking at her. Under the glow of the moonlight seeping in through the bathroom window when he came to, she had looked like an angel, here to save him. _Never mind looking like_ , he thought, squeezing his fingers together until the tips turned white. _She_ is _one_. 

One he didn’t deserve, honestly. For all the years they’d been friends—that she’d been his _best_ friend—what had she ever gotten out of it? 

“Anything different this time?” she asked, following the script they’d established long ago.

“Nothing,” he said. He blinked, realizing the lie. Beverly, still peering at him closely, must have caught the change in his expression, because she tapped his shin with her foot under the table.

“Started out the same,” he said. He hadn’t described the actual dream to her in years. Why would he, when nothing about it ever changed? But this time... “I’m sleeping at my writing desk and my manuscript is in front of me.” 

In the dream, he watched himself sleep from above, the sheets of yellowed paper askew beneath the press of his cheek, his pen—a Montblanc, never mind that he’d never been able to justify the expense of one—loose between his fingers, ready to tumble away the moment he moved. He never wrote by hand in real life, but the image had a kind of romance to it, he supposed. 

“In my sleep, my lips move, and they’re speaking the last sentence I’ve written.” The last few words he’d spoken before The Change That Ruined Everything. “You’ve freed yourself from what confined you. But you’ll find no peace without me.”

Bitter words. Something a jilted ex might say, out of context. _In_ context, it marked one of the most terrifying moments for the good guy in the book: battling for freedom, at the mercy of the main character—the titular villain. _The good guy is always an EveryMan, or a metaphor for him_ , he’d explained to Jack when he first pitched the book. _That’s what makes him so boring. That’s not the kind of story I want to write._

But in the dream, it hadn’t been the boring EveryMan to whom he whispered this line, softly, like a prayer. Not him. And certainly not Adrian:

He’d been half-way through writing the third novel when Jack finally called with the news that Bedelia at one of the Big Five had expressed interest in _both_ of his completed manuscripts. On one condition. 

Never mind that changing the main’s name changed the character. The backstory. The _psychology._

Jack wore him down in the end, telling Will not to over-complicate things—just replace the names. He could have done it in a few keystrokes. Find and Replace had been engineered for this exact purpose. Instead, Will went through each manuscript, rereading from the beginning, painstakingly replacing his name every time it appeared, and rewriting the story where the new personality necessitated it.

When he reached the last line in the half-completed draft of the third book, he sat back in his chair and grieved. Much harder than he had when Matthew left him. This loss hurt so much more. Altering the name had altered the character into someone else. Someone that Will could not fall in love with. Could not write for. 

Bedelia bought both novels and the promise of the third. It would never come, though.

As long as Adrian Atwell, the character, lived, Will’s muse was gone forever. 

_That_ was who he spoke the words to, in the dream. To his muse. Not Adrian—and, _God_ , how that name filled him with spite.

“I whisper the words,” he repeated to Beverly, “and slowly at first, a tendril of fog—light smoke, maybe—comes off the page. It comes faster and faster, thicker and thicker, until it takes the shape of a man.”

Beverly picked up her coffee. She touched her lips to the mug, grimaced, and blew across the top of it again before setting it back down on the table. 

“He—he says something in my ear.”

Tall, agile, he bent over him, the ephemeral suggestion of his lips brushing against Will’s skin as he whispered his secret message. 

“And then I wake up,” Will said. 

“That’s the same as usual,” Beverly said, patient, probing. Getting sick after waking was the same as usual too, but she was nice enough not to bring that up at this point. 

“I—” Will swallowed, his mouth already running dry. “I think I heard what he said to me.” He swallowed again, an effortful thing against the knot in his throat. “In the dream.”

“What did he say?” she asked, leaning forward, eyes bright. 

Will tried to part his lips, but they stayed glued together, refusing his attempt to speak. 

Beverly mistook his silence for reticence and sat back in her chair. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said, “but if you’re ever ready to share, I’m here for you, Will.”

He gave her a weak smile. “I don’t think I can stomach the coffee right now, Bev.”

“It’s not cooling down, anyway. Here. Let me help you back to bed.” She wrapped an arm around his torso to help him up, and he swung his arm over her shoulder. 

“Thanks.”

They had moved the bed downstairs after the third time she came rushing over in the middle of the night. After Matthew left. It made for a shorter walk from the kitchen. She tucked him in the way she always did, then folded his glasses up and put them on the nightstand along with a glass of water and two aspirin in a small cup. 

“You gonna be able to sleep?” Beverly asked, coiling her finger into one of his curls, still sitting on the mattress beside him.

“I think so,” he said. “Long drive back. You want to stay?”

She smiled softly and pushed at his hip. At this point, she kept an outfit for each season in her own drawer in his dresser. “Scoot over.”

He wrapped an arm around her again, this time in affection rather than seeking support, and closed his eyes as she nestled herself against him. “You need a change, Graham,” she murmured into the dark. 

“Mm.” With her warmth on one side and Winston’s on the other, Will felt so content he would agree to anything. 

“I have a work thing I’m going to today,” she said, apparently sensing weakness. “A cocktail hour thing. You wanna be my plus one?”

He didn’t remember agreeing, but he must have, because when he woke alone, hours later, she had set out a change of clothes for him along with a note: _Get a haircut and trim your beard. Can’t have you looking like a scrub if you’re my arm-candy for the day._

Granted, whether he’d agreed or not, Beverly could justify a little white lie if she thought it would do him good. 

The smell of stale coffee wafted to him from the kitchen—nothing a minute in the microwave wouldn’t fix—and he walked over on legs as weak as a fawn’s. He rinsed out the mug Beverly had left in the sink the night before, filled it with the stale brew and zapped it back to tolerable. 

The mug went with him into the bathroom. He needed a cut, yeah. His hair looked more like a mane, hanging down to his shoulders. In combination with the thicket growing from his jawline, he looked like some kind of deranged animal. 

Fine. He’d go to the barbershop. To please Beverly. Just this once.

She texted him a time and location half-way through his haircut, giving him barely enough time to go home, wash his face, change, and leave again. _I thought she said a work thing_ , he thought as he punched the address into the aftermarket GPS duct-taped to the dashboard of his rickety little station wagon. And she’d picked him out a suit to wear, of all things. _But Baltimore and Quantico are opposite directions._

As he maneuvered through the rush hour traffic, he searched his memory for any recent mentions about cases she’d been working. But he came up with nothing. She respected his process and didn’t discuss cases with him, catering to his fear that he’d draw too closely from life while writing. Not that he’d been doing much of that lately. His ignorance didn’t worry him. These Bureau events were almost cultish in their reliance on ritual; he wouldn’t stay in the dark for long. 

The GPS directed him to a swanky upper-crust neighborhood in Baltimore city proper, to a house in the middle of the block. Any number of cars—most the sleek black things that the FBI drove around—sat parked in the drive and along the curb down the block. Not wanting to risk tapping one of the nicer vehicles during a clumsy parallel-park job, he left his clunker as far away from the masses as possible while still in easy view of the house. 

[Come let me in], he texted Beverly, tugged his threadbare winter coat around him, and made his way to the front door. She swung it wide mere seconds later and launched herself at him with a hug.

“You’re _late_. And take that coat off _right now_ before he sees it,” she whispered into his ear, already shoving at his lapels. “Kade is here, and she’s in a snit about having nothing to be in a snit about.”

“Your boss?” He hurried to do as she said, trying to peek over her shoulders at the throng of people inside—all in suits and ties, thank you very much—to identify the source of her anxiety. _Nobody’s looking our way_. 

“We’re celebrating the closing of the—are you writing?” He shook his head. “Some guy at the BSHCI gave a false confession to the Chesapeake Ripper murders,” she explained, yanking the sleeve of his jacket down one arm before he’d finished with the zipper. 

Will fumbled with it where it always got stuck, and nearly yelped as Beverly’s grip tightened on his arm. 

“Shit,” she hissed. 

Will shot her a look and opened his mouth to ask why, when a warm, low-pitched voice—a _foreign_ , yet oddly familiar voice—beat him to the punch. “Miss Katz and guest,” said the man, humor lightening his musical tone. “Is something the matter?”

The blood drained from Will’s face the moment he beheld the beautiful, if oddly skeletal features of the man before them. _There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. Poe._ His heart started pounding, beating hard in his ears, his stomach turned over and froze up his insides. 

“Nothing, nothing, just helping him with his—” she yanked the offensive article of clothing off his other arm and hid it behind her back, “jacket. Here, let me introduce you. This is my good friend, Will Graham. You may have heard of him from his novels. And Will,” she said, the ease in her speech disappearing the moment she turned to him and saw the shock written on his face. “...This is… Doctor Hannibal Lecter. Our host.”

_No._

Dr. Hannibal Lecter? 

This had to be some kind of joke. 

“I’m—” he sucked in a shaky breath, stuck his hand out. He couldn’t feel his feet. Sparkles of light encroached on his field of vision. 

“Will Graham,” Dr. Lecter supplied, intense gaze fixed on Will’s face, curious as to his reaction. “A pleasure.”

“It’s—”

He didn’t get to finish, of course. Too busy passing out. 

-+-

The first time he had the dream— _the_ dream—it wasn’t really a dream. He never told Beverly; she worried enough about him enough already and he didn’t want her to think he’d lost his mind on top of everything else. 

No. He’d been at his desk, passed out over his closed laptop, hand resting on his mouse. He’d cried himself to sleep there not an hour before, after typing in the final ‘Adrian’, the nail in the coffin for his inspiration. 

He’d felt the well run dry in that moment, knew immediately that the change in name had altered the story so significantly that he couldn’t write past it. Not when it belonged to someone else. For as seasoned a writer as he, this foolishness made no sense. He’d never been so sentimental over his other works. But then, he’d never fallen so completely in love with a character before. 

He remembered dreaming—troubled images, grief-stricken ones—but not so far behind the veil of sleep that new noises nearby wouldn’t rouse him. What did, eventually, were the words from his own lips, and the soft hissing sound of steam. He blinked bleary eyes open and saw the ghostlike outline of a man, becoming more substantial as the seconds passed, like shadow suspended on fog.

But even in this still evolving shape, Will would recognize him anywhere.

He wrote him into being, after all. 

“Don’t leave…” he mumbled, reaching for an arm, a sleeve, anything that he could hold on to to anchor him down.

“I already have.” The words ghosted over Will’s ear, rendering his body cold.

“Stay.”

A laugh. The smoky figure bent at the waist, leaned in to Will’s ear, and, with that lilting accent and a dark promise in his voice, repeated Will’s own words back to him. 

“You’ve freed yourself from what confined you, Will. But you’ll find no peace without me.”

Only, when Will had said it, he called a different name. 

_Hannibal._

-+-

_Wednesday, Before Dawn_

“—quite safe with me, I assure you.” 

Will’s lashes fluttered open to the sound of that deep and deeply familiar voice beyond the door. He looked around the room and the events of the day came rushing back to him, along with the sense of overwhelming disbelief. This was _Hannibal Lecter’s_ house.

“He did drive himself,” Beverly conceded, and though the wooden barrier dampened her voice too, with its higher pitch he found it easier to make out. “And you have my number. If he wakes up and asks for me...” She sighed. Will could picture her running a hand through her hair, the tiredness in her expression. “Just give me a call. I can make the drive quickly enough.”

Footsteps followed, quieter and quieter with the growing distance. 

Will pushed himself upright in the bed, pressing his fingers to his temples. His head pounded. He glanced to his left at the nightstand, and past the blurriness of his vision, made out the distinct outline of his phone next to his glasses, with a glass of water and a smaller cup beside it. _Bev_ , he thought, bubbling over with affection as he put on his glasses, the small white tablets of aspirin coming into relief in the bottom of the little cup. 

He took his pills, drank the whole glass of water, and then looked around the room. 

_An oppressively rich style_ , he remembered writing. _Opulent to the point of intimidation, luxurious enough to estrange._

The description bore out. The samurai armor on the pedestal across from the bed, the dark navy of the wall coloring, the heavy wood of the furniture. All exactly as he’d pictured it, exactly as he’d _written_ it, in the series’ first venture into Doctor Hannibal Lecter’s—now Doctor Adrian Atwell’s—lair.

“You’re awake.”

Will nearly jumped out of his skin. He hadn’t heard the approach, heard the door open. If they made any noise at all, he hadn't registered them, too lost in thought. “Yes, I’m sorry, I—” His throat convulsed, once more at a loss for words. “What time is it?”

“Well past midnight, now.” The man—and here again Will had to swallow his disbelief that, no matter how he looked at him, this man _was Hannibal Lecter_ —approached the bed with a silent tread and seated himself on the edge of the mattress beside Will, the way Beverly had last night. “Your friend left you in my care. And you are in qualified hands, I assure you. I used to be an—”

“An Emergency Room surgeon?” Will asked, unable to move his eyes from the remarkable face before him, the cognac-colored irises that seemed to glow with hell-fire in the low light of the room. “Seven years,” he said, the words heavy as lead on his tongue, and still bullying their way out of his mouth, “until you changed to psychiatry.”

“Just so.” A pause as he examined Will’s face. 

The precise language, the cadence of his speech, so achingly familiar. But more than that, Will recognized the calculation in his expression, and the meaning behind it. His blood ran cold. 

“I begin to wonder if your fainting spell was not intentional. Have you been reading up on me, Mister Graham?”

“Just—just Will. And not reading, I,” Will stopped, feeling faint again. “I’m so sorry—can I bother you for a bite to eat? I haven’t eaten since… must be day before yesterday, now.”

“Feeling dizzy?” Broad, long-fingered hands reached for him, tugging down his lower eyelid, shining a light first in one eye and then the other, skimming over the ends of Will’s fingers as he tested them for color. 

“Yeah.” He’d imagined those hands before. He knew them intimately. To feel them on him now? Yes. Dizzying.

“Allow me a moment. I’ll bring something light up for you.”

“Have you—” Will reached a hand out to touch the beautifully soft fabric of the sleeve in front of him, suddenly urgent. “Have you ever read any of my books?” he asked. 

“I’m afraid not,” came the start of the reply.

“Not one for genre fiction,” Will quoted, unable to stop himself, despite knowing that yet another interruption would damn him further.

Curiosity burned bright in those dark eyes, fixed so intently on him. “As you say. Excuse me now. I have a consommé that should be gentle enough for you to eat, but reheating it will take a moment.”

Will nodded, still reeling, head still spinning. When alone in the room at last, he counted out three ten-second breath cycles before getting out of bed. Fully dressed. He pocketed his phone. His shoes sat on top of a bit of muslin cloth on the end of the dresser. Better to leave them off. They would make too much noise against the hardwood floors. 

As soft-footed as he could, and yet convinced that his heartbeat had grown loud enough to expose him, he made his way through the house, shoes in hand—no effort involved in navigating it, having written it into existence himself—to the front door. He checked the coat closet, moving slowly and silently, but his jacket didn’t number among the fine garments hanging within. No big loss. It might be cold, but his car wasn’t that far.

From the silence of the hall behind him, and much closer than he hoped to hear it, that familiar voice spoke again. “Will?”

 _Fuck_. His only concession to fear in that moment was its cold grip around his throat. But he ignored it, throwing himself at the front door and running out into the night, into the dark. 

-+-

_You have one new message. To listen to your messages, press one._

_*beep*_

“Will? You haven’t called me back. Or texted. I’m worried about you. Lecter said you got back okay, but I’d really like to hear it from you. Oh, and, speaking of Lecter, you left quite an impression on him. Asking all kinds of questions about you today. Is love in the air? I wouldn’t know, because you _haven’t called me_.”

_*beep*_

-+-

_Friday_

It’s hard to reject the evidence when it’s staring you in the face. But with space and time, the mind is entirely capable of tricking itself, choosing to acknowledge a less devastating, if also less accurate, narrative. Most would, if unknowingly, choose this route. 

Not Will Graham. He had no desire to let himself be lulled into complacency. From the moment of his escape, he accepted the fact that a more reasonable mind might try to deny.

_Hannibal Lecter is real._

A part of him shivered in fear, knowing the impression he left on the man. Knowing what, if this Hannibal was _his_ Hannibal, he would want to do about it. _His_ Hannibal, after all, was a serial killer with a baroque aesthetic for the displays of death he left behind. What monument would he erect with Will’s body…? How would he castigate his tardiness, his interruptions, his presumptuousness? 

And yet still another part of him trembled. Not from fear, but from love. He wanted nothing more than to drive back to Baltimore to try to talk to him. To make him listen. God created man after all, and despite all of man’s flaws, was still helpless but to love him. Will created Hannibal, the worst of men. How could he help but to be carried away in devotion to him?

He wrestled with these two conflicting drives until late into Thursday evening, though the internal—and sometimes startlingly vocal, if one should think to ask Winston—debates served him well. When he woke on Friday, he no longer felt mired in confusion, but flushed with resolve. A part of him that had disappeared for years now came back into his life. 

He would recapture it, make it part of his own flesh once more, no matter the cost.

In the novels, Hannibal Lecter’s alter ego had been known as the Baltimore Butcher. Not the cleverest moniker, but that had been part of the story. In the first novel, after Hannibal’s—Adrian Atwell’s—debut murder, an intrepid if ethically questionable and sensationalist reporter, Francine Hill, also the novel’s most interesting side character by far, gave him the nickname. 

No Baltimore Butcher in the real world. Or a Francine Hill, for that matter. 

And the murders didn’t quite match up, either. A good thing; Will felt certain that if living-Hannibal would have ever heard his kills compared to Adrian Atwell’s, he would have sought Will out immediately, to make sure that the comparison would never be drawn again.

“How did I miss all of this…?” he asked himself, reading the back-catalogue of TattleCrime articles on the Chesapeake Ripper’s kills. He tended to shut himself off from the world, especially the news, while writing. And when he stopped writing, after the death— _no,_ he corrected himself, _the disappearance_ —of his muse, he somehow never resumed the habit. 

If any doubt lingered within him about the truth of his conclusions, though, he found it in the date of the first Ripper murder. One day after the first time he saw the dream.

Winston hovered around him all morning as Will cleaned and made his plans, sensing his anxiety, but unsure what to do to help with Will’s behavioural patterns so drastically changed. Knowing how tidy Hannibal liked things, Will moved about the house in a frenzy, dusting and sweeping, polishing and organizing, airing out, scrubbing down. On a whim, he washed his sheets and did a load of his clothes: _his_ Hannibal had an almost supernatural sense of smell—the last thing Will wanted was to bring him here and have him turn his nose up in disgust. 

With a thick knit sweater over his shirt for warmth and to hide his gun where he kept it tucked into its unobtrusive holster on his hip, Will made the drive to Baltimore. Hannibal would not be expecting him. Will’s coat, left behind in his haste to escape on Wednesday morning, would make a good enough cover story.

He parked in the drive, as close to the front door as he could manage, and left the key in the ignition, the engine running. No point in being sneaky. The lights were on inside. He checked his reflection in his mirror once, quickly—hair still nicely coiffed, beard neatly groomed—giving in to the ridiculous urge to primp, and then he got out of this car and marched up to the front door, stopping to step on a particularly crunchy-looking leaf on the edge of the walkway. 

He looked up at the house and realized he hadn’t noticed the facade last time. His mind must truly have been elsewhere, because it too appeared exactly as he described it in his novels. He knew it intimately. Without effort, as though he had rung it a million times before, his finger found the doorbell. 

Not a minute later, the door opened. Hannibal stood there, in the light, in a plaid suit similar to the one he wore on Tuesday, except with a broader pattern in deep browns and reds. It suited him.

“Will,” he said, his expression immaculately constructed to read as ‘pleasantly surprised’. “How unexpected.”

“I didn’t have your number.” Both of them knew he could have gotten it easily from Beverly. “I came to get my coat.”

“Of course. Would you come in while I get it for you?”

“I can wait here,” he said. He knew that the reticence seemed suspicious, but conversely that worked in his favor. Hannibal would go along with Will, curious to find out what he had in mind.

Will unholstered his gun the moment that Hannibal turned his back, the sound of the hall closet door in motion covering the rustle of fabric as he pushed his sweater aside. Hannibal, unaware—though surely not entirely, with that keen nose of his—pulled Will’s coat from its hanger.

As he turned back, Will leveled the weapon and clicked his tongue. “You’ll want to take your coat too, Doctor Lecter,” he said, and drank in the flare of genuine _pleasant surprise_ sparkling in Hannibal’s eyes when they landed on the weapon, noted the steady grip and the resolution in Will’s confident stance. 

“May I ask what this is about?” he said, turning back around to grab his coat from the hanger and then deftly donning it, all while still holding on to Will’s tatty jacket. 

_The picture of animal grace. A perfect predator._

Will blinked twice, hard, reminding himself to focus. He jutted his chin out, pointing it at Hannibal’s right coat pocket. “The scalpel,” he said. “Pass it here.”

One of Hannibal’s eyebrows ticked up in surprise, and his eyes glimmered with delight. But he reached into his pocket, slowly, and produced the scalpel.

“The one up your sleeve too,” Will said, and now Hannibal had a devilish grin on his face as he complied. Will snatched the blades from him, tucked them into his back pocket before returning his hand to support the grip on his firearm. He beckoned to the door. “We’re going for a drive.”

“Are we, indeed?” Hannibal murmured, following obediently along. 

Will kept the gun on him, knowing that he didn’t need to anymore, that Hannibal’s curiosity, already piqued, would make him play along. But he kept it pointed, steady, at the doctor, not wanting to give the game away yet. Not when things were—were starting to feel _fun_. “You’re driving,” he said. 

“Ah,” Hannibal stopped moving at that. “Can I not offer you the use of my Bentley, perhaps?”

Will licked his lips once. Honestly, the offer tempted. The duct-taped GPS and beaten-up interior wouldn’t leave much of a good impression. Still. “No, thank you,” he said, and again received an amused eyebrow-raise as Hannibal lowered himself into the derelict vehicle. “I’ll give you directions,” Will said. “No talking while we drive.”

“As you say,” Hannibal agreed, placid, appearing entirely unperturbed by the situation.

Like magic, the roads were clear on the drive back to Wolf Trap, and they made it in record time. Hannibal obediently drove up to the house and parked the car where instructed. He handed Will the key and stayed put in the vehicle until Will walked around to open his door for him. 

“Your home?” Hannibal asked, as Will nudged him up the front steps. 

“Yes. After you.” 

The doctor opened the front door, taking a quick look around before stepping through. Will pulled the scalpels from his pocket, tucked them into the drawer on his entryway table, and then holstered his gun. Winston, in the kitchen, remained unmoving, eyes sharp, sensing the tension and waiting for a development he could act on.

“Am I free to speak now, then?” Hannibal asked, walking around the living room, peeking into the kitchen— _stifling a frown_ —and then casting his eye over what should be a dining room, which housed Will’s bed instead. 

_Makes an interesting psychological picture, I’m sure._

“Yes,” Will answered, unable to tear his eyes away as Hannibal stalked about the room. Something fluttered in his stomach. _Nerves. This is a… a fundamental undertaking._

“Suppose I ask why you’ve brought me here.”

“How about instead,” Will said, “I tell you why you decided to come along.”

“You held me at gunpoint,” Hannibal pointed out, lowering himself onto one end of the couch with a proprietary air. 

Will walked over to the sideboard. “You came because you’re curious,” he said, ignoring the way Hannibal seemed to turn the space into his own. “Because you want to know why I know about you, and what I know. Whiskey?”

“Thank you, yes. Neat.”

Will poured out two glasses. He walked over to hand Hannibal his, but didn’t relinquish it when Hannibal’s grip closed around it. “The answer to that is, I know _everything_ about you.” 

A little puff of amusement. “You’ll forgive me for maintaining a healthy skepticism on that count.”

Will released the glass. Hannibal murmured a thanks.

They locked eyes, and for a moment Will felt himself drowning. He sat down on the edge of the coffee table across from his guest. In kicking distance, yes—but an assertive position to take, and that would matter. Will licked his lips, folded his hands together, and spoke.

“Hannibal Lecter, born in Lithuania and raised with his sister Mischa by his two parents until their passing—collateral from the war, when the family estate was raided for provisions—” Hannibal’s smile had dropped abruptly, tension clenched his jaw tight, and his eyes gleamed with a dangerous assessment, “to then lose Mischa only weeks later while captive to those same raiders. Adopted by Uncle Robertas and Lady Murasaki at age fourteen after three years in a nightmare of an orphanage… need me to go on?” He pushed his whiskey to the middle of the coffee table, out of arms’ reach.

“You have—” Hannibal cleared his throat, all amusement lost. “A frightfully skilled private investigator,” he said. “May I have his business card?”

Winston whined, stepping forward. Will glanced over his shoulder, surprised he’d forgotten about the dog. “Out, Winston,” he commanded, and Winston lowered his head before ducking out through the doggie door in the kitchen. Will looked at Hannibal, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his thighs. “But that’s not all that I know, Doctor,” he added. “I know _everything_.”

“Some secret I’ve told no one before?” said with a mocking smile. 

“Better than that. All of them. The secrets you hold closest to your heart.”

Hannibal said nothing as he settled his whiskey on the side table, but when he looked back at Will, he tilted his head the tiniest bit to the side. _Permission._

“I know what the raiders fed you, that cold night in November,” he said, watching the energy coil inside of his creation before him. “And I know that you’re the Chesapeake Ripper.”

Hannibal surged forward, toppling them both onto the floor. One hand wrapped vice-like around Will’s throat, the other taking advantage of Will’s loss of breath from the collision with the floor to pin Will’s hands in place together over his head. Will grunted, a little dazed, but not from the fall.

The trappings of Hannibal’s perfectly tailored person suit crumbled, and only unfettered emotion remained; barely restrained violence. “Did you think I would not lay hands on you?” he whispered, his speech the only part of him that remained unaffected. 

Will’s cheeks warmed. He couldn’t help it, not with Hannibal’s weight over him, the spicy scent of his cologne... “I thought you might,” Will breathed, “but I know you won’t go much further than this.”

“Why?”

“Because you want to know _how_.” 

Something changed then, in Hannibal’s expression. The slightest flicker of doubt, of questioning. 

_He already knows._

Like a tsunami, the realization overcame Will. It would bowl him over, were he not already on the floor. “You’ve read my books,” Will sighed, unable to contain his happiness. “You saw yourself on the pages.”

“I saw Adrian Atwell,” Hannibal corrected, a disdainful curl to his lip. His grip loosened somewhat, enough to return the circulation to Will’s fingertips, but not enough for Will to work free if he ever put in the effort.

He wouldn’t.

“Publisher made me change it.” All of his words seemed to come out in whispers now. To preserve the sacred space of this moment between them. “Felt ‘Hannibal Lecter’ was too inaccessible for the masses. Wanted more of an _everyman_.”

A scoff for a response.

“I can show you my original drafts,” Will offered.

“That won’t be necessary,” Hannibal said, tilting his head to look at Will’s face. He released his grip on Will’s neck, trailing a finger through Will’s scruff to the line of his jaw. “I had some idea that you might prove interesting…” he said, voice gentle, contemplative. “I’ve heard a voice whispering behind my thoughts since I was a child,” he said. “A narrator to my life. And it sounds remarkably like yours.”

“Do you hear it now?” Will asked, hypnotized by the softness in Hannibal’s expression. _A farce_ , he reminded himself. Hannibal as written disdained the apathetic God of scripture. To meet his maker, then, and while still living, must present a bounty of delicious possibilities. Many of which undoubtedly resulted in Will’s death, and his heart on a plate.

“Louder, clearer than ever.”

“I—” Will licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry. “I promised you, Hannibal. You’ve freed yourself from what confined you. But you’ll find no peace without me.”

Hannibal blinked, and a loose, nearly human smile spread over his face, melting away only as his mouth formed his next words. “You may find you regret what those careless words have wrought,” he mused, lashes lowering as his eyes followed the movement of Will’s tongue once more darting out to lick his parched lips. “I have said before that nothing _made_ me. _I_ made me. And yet you claim to be the reason for all that I’ve become.”

“The reason Mischa was taken from you,” Will reminded him, knowing he must.

“The reason for what I am,” Hannibal agreed. The fingers on his jaw slid up into his hair, taking a firm grip of the curls at the back of Will’s neck. 

_He’ll snap my spine in two_. 

“Do you know what you’ve created, Will?”

“I do.”

“Then tell me,” he said, grip tightening in Will’s hair. “What do you see?”

“You’re…” If these were to be the last words to leave his lips, then, as Hemmingway suggested, he would make it the truest sentence he would ever say. “ _Beautiful_ ,” he sighed, and let the love pour from him. “Still beautiful.”

The lines around Hannibal’s mouth twitched. Surprised yet again. “Not God and Adam,” he mused, eyes following the path of the warm blush that heated Will’s cheeks, his neck, and under the collar of his sweater, “but Pygmalion and Galatea?”

“Galatea, when ‘Adrian’ grew too painful to say.”

Hannibal hummed.

Will knew the danger had passed. He may not return Will’s love, but he had chosen his course. One born of curiosity.

“You have not released a new book in years,” Hannibal observed. He unwound his fingers from Will’s hair and traced a path back down the column of his neck. 

“You left me,” Will murmured, closing his eyes to the sensation, still lax in Hannibal’s grip. “Took my imagination with you.”

“And has it returned?”

Will’s lashes fluttered at the press of Hannibal’s fingertips grazing the skin around the edge of his sweater, the increased pressure behind them as they skipped down his sternum. What he could imagine. “The second you walked through the door.”

“I’ve been a muse before,” Hannibal whispered, voice much closer to Will’s ear now, warm breath gusting against him.

But still Will kept his eyes closed. “Paris, ten years ago.”

“That experience pales, in comparison.” Now, Hannibal’s lips brushed against the shell of his ear, his nose disturbing the curl above it. 

Will, his every nerve ending attuned to Hannibal’s movements, the rhythm of his breath, the warmth of his legs where they trapped him to the floor, could handle the tension no longer. He turned his head and kissed the angle of Hannibal’s jaw. 

One kiss, and then he nipped at the skin there, letting it drag against his teeth. _He tastes real_ , Will reflected, still marvelling, still full of awe. _He smells real._ Hannibal’s grip around Will’s wrists relented at last, and Will’s hands immediately moved to touch him.

His shoulders, strong arms, down to his waist.

When he met Hannibal’s eyes, though, the fantasy fizzled. Hannibal looked at him, not with admiration, or intrigue, or that _special kind_ of interest, but with clinical detachment. Calculation. _He’s not enjoying this. He’s figuring out how to leverage my feelings to his advantage,_ Will realized. 

Well. There were ways around that.

“The Baltimore Butcher and the Chesapeake Ripper’s crime scenes have been different, every time,” he murmured, “even if the circumstances have been the same.”

“I did notice that discrepancy,” Hannibal said, now watching the progression of Will’s hands. They started on Hannibal’s knees, and were now inching up his thighs. 

“You were planning to kill me,” Will said, voice light, unoffended. “How would you have done it?” He ran his hands back down to Hannibal’s knees and then started their slow slide upward again.

Hannibal remained unmoving, except for the tilting of his head toward his shoulder as he assessed the man below him. “I’ve never had a subject as exquisite as you,” he murmured. “I might saw open your head, here,” he said, tracing his finger in a horizontal line across Will’s forehead. “Remove your brain, and serve it to you for dinner.”

A shiver ran down Will’s spine. Goosebumps spread over his skin, all over his body. 

“Would you have shot me, Will?”

“No,” he sighed, lashes fluttering again, fingers trailing back down Hannibal’s thighs. “Too impersonal. If I were to kill you, I…” he swallowed hard. “I would do it with my hands.”

A low hum vibrated in Hannibal’s chest. His fingers closed around Will’s where they settled on his legs. “You would destroy your own creation?”

“Oh, yes,” Will said, opening his eyes to meet Hannibal’s. “And I would eat you whole.”

With an amused huff, Hannibal leaned forward and pressed his lips to Will’s cheek. 

“I would start with your liver,” Will whispered, turning his face into Hannibal’s, nuzzling him. He snaked his hand up to the knot on Hannibal’s tie, and with a sharp tug, pulled it free. “Then your lungs, kidneys, brain... I would save your heart for last.” 

When Hannibal turned to meet his gaze, Will touched his lips in a kiss. A gentle touch, and then another, before he caught Hannibal’s lower lip between his teeth and bit almost hard enough to draw blood. 

They were a flurry of motion, then. Hannibal pulled them both to their feet, their lips still engaged, and tugged him toward the bed. Where Will managed the buttons on Hannibal’s waistcoat— _I should have written him with simpler taste in clothing_ —Hannibal unbuckled Will’s belt in deft, efficient movements. 

Only two buttons held Hannibal’s shirt together when he knocked Will away from his task. When they reached the mattress, Hannibal toppled Will face-down on top of it, to yank Will’s slacks and boxers down in one rough yank. His blunted nails scraped against Will’s skin as they went, ripping a pained gasp from his throat and sending his heart into a frenzied rhythm. 

Hannibal’s body draped over his, and Will, trapped beneath the monster, felt himself grow achingly hard. “Hold still,” Hannibal breathed against Will’s neck, and then his body shifted. The familiar sound of the bedside drawer opening made Will turn his head; Hannibal pulled out the infrequently used bottle of lube and a condom packet after a brief search.

“Hannibal—” 

A hand to the middle of his back pressed him back down to the bed. “I believe I told you to hold still.”

But Will had no intention of being a passive recipient of Hannibal’s strategically given affections. Will may love him, but his love could _see_. He would force Hannibal to see him too.

He took advantage of Hannibal’s preoccupation with uncapping the lubricant to shove himself backward. As Hannibal stumbled a step away from the bed, Will, with more coordination than he usually gave himself credit for, twisted his body round onto his back, and raised himself to a seated position.

“What do you plan to get out of this?” he asked, yanking at the front of Hannibal’s shirt to bring him closer in between his legs. “You want me to write something for you?”

“It’s not outside the realm of possibility,” Hannibal said, resuming his work. He tossed the red plastic lid to the floor and poured a dollop of lube into the palm of his left hand. His lips quirked downward. His eyes skimmed over Will’s face for a long moment. “Allow me a question, Will.”

“Shoot,” Will said, cocking an eyebrow, leaning back on his hands, elbows locked. 

“Your works are replete with graphic depictions of death,” he said, lubed fingers rubbing slowly together, an almost absent-minded gesture. “But have you ever taken a life? Seen the light leave your victim’s eyes, watched them turn into air, and light, and color? Or has that been merely a product of your excellent imagination?”

_Air, and light, and color._

Will’s heart constricted with love. “The fun of this, Hannibal,” he said, giving him his most shark-like grin, “is that while only the little details escape me, you have yet to see the whole picture.”

Hannibal’s fingers stopped moving.

“The whole board,” he added, victorious. _He’s mine._

If there was one thing that Hannibal could not resist, it was a good game. And one with his Creator on the other side of the board? 

“For a mere man,” Hannibal murmured, studying Will as though seeing him for the first time, “you’ve made yourself rather interesting, haven’t you?”

Will straightened, pulled the sweater and shirt off over his head and tossed them to the side. He reached out again, took either side of the front of Hannibal’s shirt in his hands and tugged hard enough to make the remaining two buttons—the last bastions of decency—pop off. 

Hannibal reached forward with his clean hand to caress the side of Will’s face, a thoughtful light shining in his eyes. His hand slid down to Will’s clavicles, then the center of his chest, to settle over Will’s heart.

Which made no pretense of hiding its rabbiting beat.

Will couldn’t wait any longer. He stood to kick off his pants, the weight of the gun in its holster dropping them to the floor with little resistance, then moved forward to push the shirt off of Hannibal’s shoulders. Broad, well muscled-shoulders. _They’d have to be, considering his hobbies_. He took Hannibal’s hands in his, unbuttoned first one cuff and then the other.

The shirt fell. Hannibal remained watchful, cooperative but reserved, letting Will lead for the moment. So Will did. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to Hannibal’s sternum, and with the pressure of his hands on his waist, turned him so he took Will’s place sitting at the edge of the bed. 

He kissed his way down Hannibal’s chest, nosing through the hair there, pausing to lave at his nipples, all the while unbuckling his belt, pushing down his pants and urging his hips up to rid him of them. With that finally finished, he shot Hannibal another wicked grin before getting to work.

A lubed hand grabbed his shoulder, and the other tangled into his curls, the moment that Will’s fingers closed around Hannibal’s cock, already hard, curving against his belly. He licked a path from the base to the head while he reached for the lube, abandoned on the bed. Hannibal’s breath hitched when Will’s lips closed around him, and his grip tightened exponentially, not giving Will much room to move. 

That was fine. 

He licked and suckled and kissed in the limited range that Hannibal allowed him, as he slicked his hand up and then set about working himself open. It might have been a while since the last time he shared a bed with a partner, but he’d done this often enough, recently enough, to manage it while keeping his mouth busy. 

Hannibal above him, grunted, spread his thighs a little further apart. Will’s free hand came up to take advantage of the increased access and fondle his balls. It had the desired effect—a low moan, and a tightened grip, knuckles digging against Will’s scalp. 

His caresses continued only long enough for him to finish his own preparations. The moment he felt himself ready, past thinking about the stretch, he pulled off of Hannibal’s cock with a pop of his lips, and got to his feet. “Scoot up,” he murmured, and Hannibal did so with his usual grace, in no apparent hurry, though a pleasant flush had come to his cheeks and his eyes sparkled with a wicked light. 

_He’ll devour me whole_ , Will thought. _But it’s too late for me_. Hannibal had been a part of him as much as Will had been a part of Hannibal. Will would never escape his love for him. 

He rose over Hannibal, straddling him on the bed, and for the first time this evening put his hand on his own aching cock, spreading the bead of pre-cum around the head with his thumb. A little relief, a little torture; he did it again. 

Hannibal’s hands imitated the motions that Will’s made when they were talking on the floor of the living room—sliding up his thighs, long fingers wide as he gripped Will’s hips at the top. He squeezed then, pulling Will’s body closer, higher. A nonverbal command.

Shifting forward on the bed, Will wasted no time. The hand on his own shaft moved to grasp Hannibal’s, to hold him steady and in place. 

Slowly, he lowered himself until the head of Hannibal’s cock rubbed up against him. Here, he held still, relishing the tease, the pressure. 

The head of Hannibal’s cock breached Will, then, as Hannibal pushed up from below, pressing through the tight ring of muscle and as deep into Will’s body as he could manage with the limited leverage. His knees came up as he planted his feet on the bed and drove upward once more. 

The little gasp that exploded from Will’s lips came in concert with the sharp sensation of being penetrated. His eyes fell closed, and he groaned, pressing down hard to take Hannibal as deeply as he could. 

Despite the prep, it burned. His body stretched around Hannibal’s thick shaft, the air punched from his lungs, his jaw clenched tightly to keep the pain private.

Nothing in the world could induce Will to be anywhere else, doing anything else at this moment. 

“Breathe,” Hannibal commanded from below him, and those were the last words spoken between them as their bodies found a common rhythm. A steady, unyielding, grinding pace, hips rocking rather than bouncing. Like this, Will could feel every inch of Hannibal’s length, down to the root. His strong fingers still gripped at Will’s hips, guiding their motion.

One of Hannibal’s feet shifted on the bed, and the angle of his thrusting changed. Will released a startled hiss at the added pressure on his prostate, little sparks of sensation arcing up his spine. In that moment, he lost his momentum, and Hannibal took over. He made no noise, but a sheen of sweat bloomed over his tanned skin, powerful thighs slapping against the underside of Will’s legs, fingers digging tighter and tighter into the flesh of his hips.

 _They’ll_ _bruise_ , Will thought, and a surge of arousal brought his hand to his own neglected cock. 

It didn’t last long after that. Will’s building orgasm drew his every muscle taut. His desperate moans as his hand pumped up and down his shaft grew louder as his fingers, on Hannibal’s chest for support, clawed into the skin, nails biting deep.

Hannibal’s pace faltered, then. Will’s eyelids fluttered open to take in the uncontrolled expression on Hannibal’s face, his lax lips, his pink cheeks, lowered lashes and brilliant eyes. _So dishevelled, debauched_ —Will’s hand stuttered— _and he’s_ mine _again_. With a low cry, Will’s body pitched forward, his hand squeezed hard once more around himself, and he gave in. He came hard over Hannibal’s chest and his own belly, body twitching and tightening as he worked himself through it. 

The pressure of Will’s orgasm brought Hannibal to his, and on a low, deep moan, he pulsed deep inside of Will, his heart beneath Will’s hand beating a frenetic tattoo. His grip on Will’s hips fell lax then, only to tighten once more and bully Will back into motion—a soft, gentle rocking, to tease the last of his release from him.

When their bodies eventually stilled, Will remained in place until he felt Hannibal’s erection completely subside. Only then did he raise himself up, separating their bodies, and lay down beside his creation, curling up into his side. 

A meandering hand stroked down the middle of his back, up to tickle the hairs at the nape of Will’s neck again, before tracing the same path back downward. Will hummed, nosing into the hair above Hannibal’s ear, comfortable, sated, _right_. And then Hannibal’s fingers dipped lower, past his tailbone, to press against the leaking, slightly puffy ring of muscle between his cheeks. He rubbed the pad of his finger around it before pressing once again, fingers tacky with lube and cum.

Will shuddered, and Hannibal made a soft, amused noise before his eyes closed. 

At some point, Winston had shuffled back inside, and he sat next to Will’s side of the bed, watchful. But Will’s attention didn’t stray from the man beside him. For a long while, he lay there in the dark, listening to his breathing. Hannibal feigned sleep, not trusting Will enough yet to make himself so vulnerable around him. But that didn’t matter. 

He did not return Will’s love. Not yet. 

“But you will,” Will promised him, the words disappearing into the dark, as he ran his hand down Hannibal’s spine to settle possessively on his waist. The game had only just started. 

And who would know better than he?

He’d written him, after all. 

-+-

_You have one new message. To listen to your messages, press one._

_*beep*_

“Will. Jack here. This outline you’ve sent me—Jesus. I passed it along to Bedelia right away, and she’s losing her shit over there. As much as she’s capable of, anyway. Have you started on this? I’d like to come over, see what you’ve put together. God, this is—I mean, we’re blown away over here. Call me back. It’s, uh, Saturday, eleven AM right now. Jesus. Great work. Call me back before five so we can talk the details through, or I’m coming over. Got it, Graham?”

 _End of message._

* _beep_ *

-+Fin+-

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I'd write a little something short to help pass the time for those of us stuck at home, and "something short" turned into 9.5k. Why can't I write anything simple? I had to pare so much out of this to keep it a one-shot, y'all. If you have more time-a lot of it-after reading this, you should check out my other (ongoing) Hannibal fic, too! It updates regularly and things are getting TENSE over there. 
> 
> A big shoutout to my fantastic and magical Beta, metricmadscience, for whipping me into shape and pulling no punches.
> 
> Kudos and Comments appreciated, as always!


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